Ahead of the NBA’s 2025 trade deadline, it’s worth keeping in mind which teams hold traded player exceptions that could come in handy to grease the wheels on an in-season deal.
As we explain in our glossary, a traded player exception allows a team to take on salary in a trade without sending out any salary in return. The amount of the exception (plus $250K for non-apron teams) is the amount of salary the team is permitted to take back without salary-matching – either in a single deal or in multiple trades – for one year.
For instance, a team with a $10MM trade exception could acquire a player earning $4MM and a second player earning $6MM without having to worry about sending out any outgoing salary.
In recent years, sizable traded player exceptions have served as wild cards that helped accommodate both pre-deadline and offseason deals. For example, after creating a $9.5MM trade exception when they sent Royce O’Neale to the Suns ahead of the 2024 trade deadline, the Nets used that TPE to acquire Ziaire Williams and a future draft pick in an offseason trade that allowed Memphis to shed some salary.
Many trade exceptions expire without being used, but as our tracker shows, there are several sizable ones available this season that could be useful when trade season begins in earnest.
Here are the 15 biggest trade exceptions around the NBA for now, along with their expiry dates in parentheses:
A number of these trade exceptions are more likely to be used next offseason, when teams could have more cap flexibility, than during the current season, when so many clubs are within spitting distance of the luxury tax line or a hard cap.
For example, using even a small portion of that $25MM+ exception during the season would push the Hawks‘ team salary into tax territory, but with several contracts coming off their books next summer, they’d be in a better position to take on a big salary at that time.
The exceptions that expire before next offseason are the ones to watch more closely during the season. That $12MM+ Wizards TPE is especially intriguing, since Washington is one of the few teams with plenty of breathing room below the tax threshold. They could use nearly all of that exception at the deadline and still avoid becoming a taxpayer.
The two TPEs listed in italics can’t be used at all, since the Heat are currently operating over the first tax apron, while the Timberwolves are over the second apron. Apron teams are prohibited from using trade exceptions that were generated during the prior season (like Miami’s) or that were created by sending out a player via sign-and-trade (like Minnesota’s).
It’s worth noting that some of these exceptions may be used in a deal that could otherwise be completed using salary matching. For example, a team with a $12MM trade exception that swaps one $10MM player for another could use the exception to take on the incoming player and create a new $10MM exception using the outgoing player.
Given tax and apron considerations, we may see some deals along those lines during the season, since using a TPE in that manner would allow a team to essentially roll it over for another year.
The arbitration hearing to decide the Timberwolves’ ownership dispute began on Monday and is expected to last most of the week. The decision by the three-person arbitration panel is expected to be announced next month, according to ESPN’s Brian Windhorst.
The dispute between minority owners Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez and principal owner Glen Taylor moved to arbitration in July. A one-day mediation in the spring failed to make any progress, Windhorst writes.
The dispute has been ongoing since the tail end of last season. Taylor nixed the previous tiered payment agreement with Lore and Rodriguez, citing a breach of contract and a failure to meet a payment deadline. Lore and Rodriguez disputed that characterization, stating that they had the funds necessary to become majority owners but were awaiting NBA approval and should have been entitled to an extension.
The third payment in dispute would increase Lore and Rodriguez’ share from 36% to about 80% and the purchase agreement stipulates that they could buy out Taylor’s remaining 20% stake anytime before March 2025.
Windhorst and The Athletic’s Jon Krawczynski provided more details of the process:
Trail Blazers big man Robert Williams has been listed as questionable to play in Monday’s game vs. New Orleans, tweets ESPN’s Bobby Marks. It’s a signal that Williams, who has been on the shelf for nearly a full year, is on the verge of returning to action.
Acquired by Portland in the team’s Jrue Holiday trade with Boston last fall, Williams appeared in just six games during his first season as a Blazer before going down with season-ending knee surgery. He has been sidelined this fall by a hamstring strain and has yet to make his season debut.
Williams’ return will give Portland another option in a crowded frontcourt. Deandre Ayton (31.6 minutes per game) has seen most of the action at center so far this season, with rookie lottery pick Donovan Clingan (12.9 MPG) playing a modest role as his backup and Duop Reath (3.5 MPG) not part of the regular rotation.
Here are a few more injury-related notes from around the NBA:
Jazz forward Lauri Markkanen has been ruled out for a second consecutive game, according to Andy Larsen of The Salt Lake Tribune, who tweets that Markkanen will be unavailable on Saturday in Denver. Utah’s leading scorer also missed Thursday’s loss to San Antonio after exiting Tuesday’s game vs. Sacramento early due to low back spasms.
According to Larsen (Twitter link), Markkanen doesn’t anticipate a lengthy absence, indicating today that he believes he’ll return to action at some point during the team’s current road trip. That trip will include stops in in Chicago (on Monday), Milwaukee (Thursday), and San Antonio (next Saturday) before Utah returns home on November 12.
Here’s more from around the Northwest:
Timberwolves point guard Mike Conley spoke in more detail this week about the left wrist injury he has dealt with for the last few years, admitting that it prevented him from golfing over the summer after he fell on the wrist last season and aggravated an old ligament issue, per Jerry Zgoda of The Minneapolis Star Tribune. Still, Conley has gotten used to playing through the injury and plans to continue doing so.
“When I’m 50, I’ll get surgery, not right now,” he said. “The surgery is a little bit complex and I’ve been playing with it for years, so I feel like I’ll just finish it.”
Entering Friday’s bout with Denver, Conley was shooting just 22.6% from the field through Minnesota’s first four games this season, including 27.3% on three-pointers. While the wrist issue may be a factor in the veteran’s shooting struggles, the sample size is small and he’s confident those numbers will improve once he gets through an early-season adjustment period.
“I’m just trying to work back the strength of it,” Conley said. “That’s the biggest thing. The pain and stuff is gone. But there are some times when I’ll shoot it and think, ‘Ah, that’s good,’ and it’ll be like two feet short. So you’re just trying to gauge the differences and work through that as the season goes forward.”
Here’s more from around the Northwest:
One key reason the Nuggets were unable to defend their title last season was a lack of roster depth, which forced head coach Michael Malone to lean too heavily on his starters. Malone found himself falling back into old habits in Monday’s overtime win over Toronto as he tightened his rotation down the stretch and played all his starters at least 39 minutes in the first game of a back-to-back set.
“Obviously we found ourselves in a game (Monday) night that we kind of shortened our rotation up a little bit in the second half, feeling the pressure of trying to get the first win of the season,” Malone said before Tuesday’s game vs. the Nets, per Bennett Durando of The Denver Post. “And when you look at the box score after the game, especially going into the second night of a back-to-back in Brooklyn, you have your starters all at or near 40 minutes. And that’s not sustainable. We can’t do that. Game three, it was cool, man. Let’s get our first win, kind of take a deep breath. But that’s not sustainable.”
Several key Denver players also logged major minutes on Tuesday as the team once again required overtime to get past a non-playoff opponent. Nikola Jokic helped seal the victory with 29 points, 18 rebounds, and 16 assists in nearly 41 minutes of action.
Still, it was evident Malone was trying to avoid overextending his starters — four of the five played fewer minutes on Tuesday than they had on Monday, with Russell Westbrook stepping up off the bench to contribute 22 points and five assists in his best game as a Nugget so far.
“It’s hard to win in this league,” Westbrook said. “People think it’s easy, man. It’s hard. Especially when you’re a team that’s won year after year and always been in the running for NBA championships. It’s hard. We’ll get everybody’s best shot. We’ve gotta be prepared for it. However we’ve gotta get wins right now, we’ll take them.”
Here’s more from around the Northwest:
Nikola Jokic was concerned about how the Nuggets performed in the preseason. Denver has also lost its first two regular season games but the superstar center says the offense simply isn’t clicking yet, according to Tony Jones of The Athletic.
“I think we are struggling to score,” Jokić said. “We have scored 87 and 104 points in our two games. That’s not enough. In today’s NBA, you have to score more points. I think the defense has been good, so that’s a positive. But we are just not scoring enough points. We aren’t making shots. Open looks aren’t going in. We just aren’t converting and executing the way we need to.”
Jones points out that Christian Braun is still settling in to the starting lineup, while Russell Westbrook, Dario Saric and second-year shooting guard Julian Strawther are trying to do the same on the second unit.
We have more from the Western Conference:
It came against an injury-depleted Raptors team, but the Timberwolves‘ new starting lineup had some encouraging moments in Saturday’s wire-to-wire home victory, according to Chris Hine of The Star Tribune.
“It looks like it’s starting to come together,” head coach Chris Finch said. “Things that I can see that maybe we can lean into are starting to form a little bit. We got to keep doing it particularly when it matters most, but it was good for those guys.”
Minnesota got off to a sluggish start in its opening road loss to the Lakers, but the team is starting to figure out how to play around Julius Randle, who contributed 24 points, nine rebounds and five assists in 37 minutes vs. Toronto. Center Rudy Gobert grew accustomed to playing alongside Karl-Anthony Towns, but Randle is less of a shooter and more of a driver.
“I try to be in a spot where I’m not in his way,” Gobert said of Randle. “Also he’s able to to find me if my man helps, or if someone collapses, find the shooter. …We gotta get a long way to go, but it’s fun. It’s fun to watch him work, and he’s a very good passer, too, so he’s gonna be able to find his teammates most of the time.”
Here’s more from the Western Conference:
The Cleveland Charge, the Cavaliers‘ G League affiliate, announced on Friday (via Twitter) that they’ve traded the No. 2 pick in Saturday’s NBAGL draft to the Westchester Knicks in exchange for the No. 3 pick and the returning rights to two players (forwards Troy Baxter Jr. and Milhan Charles).
As a result of the deal, the Knicks’ G League team now holds the top two picks in Saturday’s draft, and Marc Stein (Twitter links) reports that there’s an expectation Westchester will use those selections to nab veteran wings Landry Shamet and Matt Ryan, both of whom are draft-eligible in the NBAGL this fall.
As Stein explains, the Knicks want Landry Shamet to be able to rehab his dislocated shoulder within the organization and have been eyeing Ryan as a potential roster addition at the NBA level. Having both players at Westchester wouldn’t stop another NBA team from poaching them, but it would put the Knicks in good position to promote one or both of them to the NBA squad at some point this season.
According to Ian Begley of SNY.tv (Twitter link), there’s still optimism within the organization that Shamet will be able to avoid surgery on his right shoulder injury.
Here are a few more G League notes ahead of Saturday’s draft:
OCTOBER 25: Gobert’s extension with the Timberwolves is now official, the team announced today in a press release.
Gobert was permitted to sign the contract after the regular season began because it’s a veteran extension and he declined his 2025/26 player option as part of the agreement.
The deal begins at $35MM in 2025/26 and increases to $36.5MM in ’26/27, with a $38MM player option for ’27/28, according to ESPN’s Bobby Marks (Twitter links), who adds that Gobert’s trade kicker is worth 7.5%.
OCTOBER 22: The Timberwolves and center Rudy Gobert have agreed to a three-year, $110MM contract extension, Shams Charania of ESPN tweets.
The move comes on the heels of Minnesota trading away Gobert’s frontcourt partner, Karl-Anthony Towns, this offseason at the start of Towns’ max extension, which created more long-term cap flexibility for the club.
Gobert, 32, is scheduled to make $43,827,587 this season on his current deal. He had a $46,655,173 option for the 2025/26 season, which he’ll decline and replace with a smaller number in order to lock in two additional years beyond that.
The new extension will include a player option for 2027/28, as well as a trade kicker, Charania adds (Twitter link).
Minnesota will get some cap relief with Gobert declining that 2025/26 option, giving the team more flexibility to make moves next offseason. Julius Randle and Naz Reid, the team’s other main frontcourt players, could become free agents if they decline their own ’25/26 player options next summer.
Gobert is the reigning Defensive Player of the Year, having won the award for a fourth time this past spring. After a rocky first season with the organization following the blockbuster deal between Minnesota and Utah, Gobert settled in last season and played an integral role on a team which reached the Western Conference Finals.
Gobert is also one of the more durable players in the league by current standards. He hasn’t appeared in fewer than 66 regular season games since the 2018/19 season.
Last season, he made 76 starts and averaged 14.0 points, 12.9 rebounds and 2.1 blocks per night. He also started 15 postseason games, averaging 12.1 PPG and 9.8 RPG.
The Wolves had a +8.0 net rating during the regular season when Gobert was on the court, compared to a +3.0 mark when he sat. During the playoffs, that gap increased to +9.8 in the center’s minutes and -6.3 when he on the bench.